Can Labour recover: Can Reform govern?
OPINION & ANALYSIS: Bob Hudson, Visiting Professor in Public Policy at Sunderland University, takes a look at 'what the hell just happened' - without making a song and dance about it!
The UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest this year is titled What the Hell Just Happened? It is a question that is being asked across the North East as the implications of the council and mayoralty election results sink in.
The figures for the Tyne-Wear region bear brief repetition. Labour hung on to the North Tyneside mayoralty by a whisker; in Northumberland the council remains in no overall control but Conservatives and Labour between them lost 22 seats while Reform came from nowhere to bag 23, only three behind the Conservatives.
In Durham, Reform, with 65 seats out of the 98 available, has a huge working majority – indeed Labour is left with an astonishing total of only four councillors. No council elections were held this year in Newcastle, North Tyneside, Gateshead, South Tyneside, and Sunderland. Sitting members in these places will be heaving a sigh of relief as there is no reason to think they would have been spared from the Reform juggernaut.
All political parties across the UK have much to reflect upon in the aftermath of the election results, but here in the north-east there are two main questions being asked: Can Labour recover? Can Reform govern?
Can Labour Recover?
In the case of Durham, it was only as recently as 2021 that over 100 years of Labour council control was finally broken. Although still the largest single party with 53 seats, the council fell under the control of a coalition of Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, Independents and Greens. After Labour’s wins last year in the general election and the North East mayoral election, there was every reason to think a return to power at County Hall, Durham, was on the cards.
To be reduced to a rump of four councillors out of 98 has left candidates and activists shell-shocked, and there can be little confidence of an early recovery. The days of judging local councillors on local events has long gone. The key message on the doorstep seems to have been about the unpopularity of government cuts to the winter fuel allowance and to disability benefits, along with low personal ratings for the Prime Minister. Many conscientious local councillors will have paid the price for events beyond their control.
The backlash against the party at national level has already begun. Ex-Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, has publicly called for a change of policy direction, as has York MP, Rachael Maskell. Nearer home, the Durham City MP, Mary Foy, posted a long and furious message on Facebook in which she declared: “The results in County Durham were completely avoidable… what we’ve seen is a direct result of the party leadership’s political choices.”
The panic at the rise of Reform is palpable. The only response so far from Keir Starmer has been to say he will push on ‘further and faster’ with the same agenda. It is hard to see an early revival of Labour’s municipal misfortune.
But the chances of a Labour revival, especially in Durham, also hinge upon the answer to the second question: Can Reform govern?
Can Reform govern?
In Northumberland there are various possibilities open to the Conservatives in joining forces with smaller parties to ensure that Reform remains as the main opposition party. In Durham, the picture is starkly different: Reform rule the roost in every way. What they do with this power will be of national interest and will be watched intently.
A governing party consisting of 65 newly elected councillors is a huge leap into the unknown. Only one of them – ex-Conservative, Robert Potts - has previous experience as a county councillor, and he is now leader of the council. There will surely be issues of inexperience, lack of knowledge, loss of organisational memory and weak political organisation.
What is clearer is the pronouncements at national level by Nigel Farage and others. Here the air is replete with threats to ‘bring in the auditors’, eradicate an imagined army of officers working on diversity and climate change, and introduce big across the board cuts in the style of Elon Musk’s ‘Doge’ initiative.
At his victory rally in Durham, Farage advised all staff working for the council on such matters to ‘seek alternative careers’. Staff morale is likely to be on the floor.
These early noises are reminiscent of Donald Trump imagining he can change the world by signing a flurry of executive orders. The new administration in Durham would do well to ignore them, otherwise their time will be taken up with a flurry of legal challenges and disputes with unions. An early decision to remove the Ukrainian flag from County Hall smacks more of performative politics than serious governance.
In any case, the major lesson of the last 15 years is that relentless austerity has cut councils to the bone and further swingeing cuts are a detachment from reality.
There are pressing matters to address in Durham. What, for example, is the fate of the prestigious Milburngate development, lying empty now for two years? Will the pledge of the previous administration to spend £55 million opening the development be kept? And what of the £23 million being spent on the unfinished renovation and extension of the old DLI museum? Will the rumoured losses on operating costs of £500k a year be underwritten?
On the revenue front, the new regime will soon discover that little or nothing is spent on climate and diversity programmes. Rather the council is drowning under the demand for adult social care support, expensive children’s services placements, and support for SEND children. Education, policing, housing services, fire and rescue and public health take up most of the rest. These are all statutory obligations
A cursory glance at the finances of Durham County Council reveals an authority swimming in debt and unable to meet the demands for support being placed upon it. It is fantasy to think a new populist broom can simply sweep these matters away, though a lot of damage could be done by attempting to do so.
Time will tell if Durham’s new rulers are ready to ditch protest politics for sober administration, but the signs are not encouraging. The populist modus operandi is to stir up grievance and turn division into votes. It works for campaigning but not for the hard yards required for complex and effective governance.
We could be about to witness a classic example of what happens when the dog catches up with the car.
Bob Hudson
Really useful analysis, thanks to Bob (and I would love to see more of these). After 25 years of living in Durham I'm minded to head for the hills (not sure which hills though). I think my biggest fear at the moment is the lack of experience in running a council (and a broken one at that).